It has long been the Toronto Star’s policy — and that of most other major news organizations — not to name victims of sexual assault. This is to protect victims from the stigma of rape that could prevent them from reporting the crime.

So why did the Star take the rare step of identifying rape victim Danae Chambers? As was reported Thursday in a Star investigation of abuse in Ontario nursing homes, Chambers, a helpless 71-year-old woman with advanced dementia, was raped in her bed at a Toronto nursing home earlier this year, allegedly by a male nurse who is facing a sexual assault charge.

“There is a policy that the media has long adhered to in Canada — protecting the anonymity of sexual assault victims by not revealing names or identifying information. Why did the editor choose to ignore that policy in this instance?” asked one reader.

“Given that the victim was unable to consent one way or the other because of ‘advanced dementia’ I am forced to conclude that it was because of her mental state that the Star thought it permissible to suspend her right to dignity and privacy,” the reader said.

Other readers asked similar questions, expressing concern that the Star’sdecision to identify Chambers and report the shocking details of the alleged attack as documented in a provincial inspection report further victimized her.

My response: The Star’s decision to identify Chambers was both bold and brave.

In the words of Graham Webb, staff lawyer of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, this was “a game-changer” that will drive home the reality of sexual abuse in nursing homes.

The Star’spolicy states that we do not publish the names of alleged sexual assault victims, or anything that could identify them, unless the victims agree to be identified and the Star considers it in the public interest to do so.

While clearly there is considerable public interest in reporting on sexual abuse in nursing homes, the decision to name Chambers was not taken lightly.

Even though Chambers’ brother and her guardian wanted her named to draw attention to the dangers vulnerable women face in nursing homes, the Star’s most senior editors still gave careful consideration to naming a sexual assault victim. Editor Michael Cooke gave the final go-ahead.

“We chose to identify Danae Chambers to put a human face to a problem we are told is prevalent and under-reported,” said investigations editor Kevin Donovan, who worked with reporters Moira Welsh and Jesse McLean. “We did this in the hope that government and eldercare leaders will take up the charge against this abhorrent situation.”

Facing the reality of sexual abuse of the elderly is one of “the last taboos,” said Welsh, who has been investigating senior care issues for almost a decade. “Keeping it secret means it is allowed to continue. We want to break that taboo through the story of Danae Chambers.”

Certainly naming Chambers and publishing a photo of her lying helpless in her nursing home bed, along with a portrait of the former artist when she was a younger, fully vibrant woman gave far more power to this issue than could any story that simply reported an unidentified elderly woman had been sexually assaulted.

Seeing Danae Chambers’ humanity, understanding all that life has taken from her, underscored the hideous thing that happened to her in a place where she should have been safe from harm.

Chambers, an acclaimed artist who achieved distinction in the 1970s and 1980s painting portraits of luminaries, including former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, began showing signs of dementia in the early 1990s. She can no longer speak or stand and requires constant care, much of it coordinated by her longtime friend and guardian Anna Schrofer.

Schrofer believes fervently that Chamber’s story needed to be told and her identity made known. She deserved to be named.

“I wanted people to really identify with this woman and the horrible thing that happened to her, so that maybe others can be helped,” Schrofer told me this week. “If Danae was just some anonymous woman then telling her story would not have the same impact.

“If she had no name, no face, then what’s the point?”

Schrofer, 65, thinks that Chambers would have agreed. And she said, “I would have expected the same from her if what happened to her had happened to me.”

It is important here that debate about naming a sexual assault victim doesn’t obscure the critical point made by the Star’s investigation — that being the sad reality of documented physical, mental and sexual abuse of vulnerable seniors in Ontario nursing homes.

But this also provides an opportunity to think more about long-standing media policies regarding naming rape victims and whether such policies serve victims or serve to further stigmatize them.

That’s a question for another column. In this case, for me, there’s no question that Danae Chambers’ name matters.